Compared to
them Western religious leaders like the Pope, who reflect little knowledge of higher
states of consciousness, appear like beginners in the spiritual realm. Later in my life,
in my thirties after I had written books on Hindu spirituality, including some published
in India, I visited India for the first time and had a number of discussions with modern
Westernized Hindus.

There I contracted the
quite India for the West movement first hand. I was appalled at how little so many Hindus
either valued or understood their own tradition. They would equate Hindu spirituality with
a superstition on par with caste and untouchability. They were found of quoting Marx or
Shakespeare but would certainly not mention the Bhagavad Gita, which they regarded as
regressive. They used materialists and atheists
lie Freuds at all. While I was interested in visiting temples and ashrams in India, they
wanted to talk about the latest developments in Western technology. While I was a
vegetarian, they ate meat. While I admired the sculpture in Hindu temples, they preferred
modern Western art.